Many space and missile applications require/desire real-time sensing and response to the current radiation environment, both natural and man-made. Real-time radiation environment sensing is accomplished with radiation detectors, single-threshold PIN diodes for man-made radiation environments and linearly-stacked detection elements for the natural radiation environment. The natural radiation environment comprises particles of a variety of species, particles of widely varying energies, and particles arriving from all directions. The requirement for characterizing the natural radiation environment for particles includes radiation detectors that can measure the rate of arrival and the energy level of arriving protons, ions, electrons and neutrons.
Most systems concerned about sensing their radiation environment require or desire, at least, hemispherical coverage of the environment. Current radiation detectors for the natural radiation environment are made with linearly-stacked detector elements. The physical arrangement of the linearly-stacked detector elements limits the Field of View (FOV) of the detector, hence limiting its ability to detect particles arriving from directions other than those within the narrow FOV. Providing hemispherical coverage with traditional linearly-stacked detectors requires a multitude of detectors pointing in “all” directions. The use of a multitude of detectors to achieve hemispherical coverage is costly and presents a number of mechanical packaging problems.
For the reasons stated above and for other reasons stated below which will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon reading and understanding the present specification, there is a need in the art for an effective and efficient hemispherical radiation detector.